


Grasping Happiness

by afteriwake



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Autopsies, Breakfast, Christmas, Christmas Morning, Coffee, Conversations, Depressed Sherlock Holmes, Early Mornings, Eurus Holmes Is Dead, F/F, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Mentioned Mycroft Holmes/OMC, Minor Irene Adler/Sherlock Holmes, POV Molly Hooper, Past Irene Adler/Sherlock Holmes, Past Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper, Sherlock Holmes & Molly Hooper Friendship, Stress Baking, Worried Anthea, bedhead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 06:55:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17055248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: Molly is woken up early one Christmas with the news there's been a murder, and her life, she finds, changes significantly that day.





	Grasping Happiness

**Author's Note:**

> This is another answer to my **sherlockrarepairs** Holiday Bingo card, with the ship Anthea/Molly Hooper.

It was three in the bloody morning on Christmas Eve. Or rather, Christmas Day now, she supposed. The insistent knocking at her door was irritating and had pulled her out of a lovely dream involving Tom Hiddleston being at her beck and call, and she was rather grumpy. She pulled on her red jumper with the white flowers shaped somewhat like snowflakes as a nod to the day and made her way downstairs to the door.

It was with some surprise to see Andrea there. She was known to most everyone as Anthea, of course, but over the years that Sherlock had been gone and Mycroft had kept his distance, it had been the woman in front of her who had kept her fears at bay regarding Sherlock and been a rather good shoulder to lean on when the practice of keeping his secret got to be too much. Andrea had her own secrets to keep, so she understood.

“Is there an emergency of some sort with the Holmes brothers I need to dash off to?” she asked.

Andrea was staring at her, or rather the top of her head. “Not...exactly.”

“Bedhead is bad, isn’t it?” Molly said.

Andrea nodded. “A bit.” She handed Molly a paper cup of coffee and she briefly wondered how Andrea had gotten coffee from Starbucks before most of the chains had opened for the day. “There’s been a murder.”

“It’s bloody Christmas,” she said with a groan.

“Their sister,” Andrea said quietly, and Molly instantly regretted her piss-poor reaction. 

“I’ll get my coat.”

**\---–**

She had never met Eurus; in the time it took for her and Sherlock to try at a relationship and fail and fall back into friendship, he had never taken her to Sherrinford to meet the woman who had wrenched such a painful confession from her. And she supposed it was only right they now meet on her turf, so to speak, but she hadn’t wanted it to be like this.

It had been tough as Sherlock wouldn’t leave the morgue as she did the post-mortem. His eyes were raw and red-rimmed as though he had been crying, and he watched over her shoulder like a hawk until she gently forced him into her office to wait. She did the most thorough job she could and by then Mycroft had joined his brother in her office. When she was done delivering the results she saw Mycroft give Sherlock a cig and she knew it was time to leave, but not before telling Sherlock to have his smoke in her office.

She was still wearing the jumper she’d put on as she got back to her flat, wanting only to crawl into bed but instead finding a full English waiting for her and Andrea sitting at the table, waiting. “How did you know when I’d be back?”

“I didn’t,” Andrea admitted. “I started cooking once you left. There are a few dozen biscuits cooling on the racks. You have good bakeware, good cookware.”

“Thank you,” Molly said, sitting down to tuck in. It wasn’t too cold but she could tell it had been sitting for at least a little bit. “They didn’t take it well. Do they have any idea--”

“Not really,” Andrea said, picking at her own plate. “This will break Sherlock, won’t it?”

“It might,” Molly said with a touch of reluctance. “But it would be far worse if it had been Mycroft.”

“I know.” Andrea sighed then and pushed the plate away. “I don’t know why I stayed. I’m not a personable person, even with you.”

“Because you need comfort, because you’re worried,” Molly said. “It’s alright to worry. Mycroft is important to you.”

“Just as a friend, and a mentor, and my boss, though,” she said.

“I see,” Molly said. “I thought you two were...more.”

“His proclivities run to the opposite gender,” she said with a small smile. “He and the Queen’s secretary have been dancing around whether they’re really an item or not ever since Sherlock went to the palace in a sheet.”

For some reason that made Molly laugh a bit, and the tension in the air seemed to dissipate. “Well, good. I’m glad there’s someone there. I worry Sherlock won’t have anyone, but it’s good Mycroft has someone.”

“He has you,” Andrea pointed out.

“Not that way. Not anymore. We love each other, but relationships just aren’t our forte. Or at least a relationship together, I suppose.” She tilted her head. “I should find a way to contact Irene. He still cares for her. She could be good to have around.”

“I already texted her. She’s on her way to Baker Street, I believe, or wherever they had their trysts.”

“Good, good. He needs her.”

“He needs you too,” Andrea pointed out.

“I can’t give him what she can. I never could. And that’s alright; Sherlock can love more than one person in more than one way. It’s what makes him the way he is now.”

Andrea tilted her head. “You’re remarkably understanding.”

“I know life is fleeting, far better than most. I deal with death on a daily basis. Not just homicides, but all sorts of death. Even though I’ve gone back to research studies, for the most part, Sherlock knows how good I am at what I used to do. But I surround myself with death and I know...you should take what happiness life gives you and hold it dear, however you can for however long you can.”

Andrea nodded and got up, moving over to her. She hesitated a moment, then bent down and pressed her lips against Molly’s. The kiss was soft but Molly didn’t hesitate before she reached up to pull Andrea in closer, deepening the kiss. Breakfast would be forgotten for a bit as, perhaps, the two women grasped a chance at happiness neither had expected, but both desperately needed.


End file.
